


Snape's Muggle

by Elfwreck



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Community: intoabar, Coulson is a BAMF, Crossover, Doctor/Patient Relationship, Gen, Magic, Missing Scene, Muggles in the Wizarding World, Potions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 13:55:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1071241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfwreck/pseuds/Elfwreck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson recovers at St Mungo's. He's not happy about this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snape's Muggle

**Author's Note:**

> Brief nod to BethBethBeth's [Just Call Me Agent](https://archiveofourown.org/works/749074). Also, apologies for lack of slash. Feel free to imagine your own for the next scene. Sex pollen is certainly possible.
> 
> Intoabar prompt: "Severus Snape walks into a bar and meets... Phil Coulson."
> 
> Wonderful hand-holding and typo check from Firefly124.

Snape looked up from the cauldrons he was tending when the trainee healer stepped into the room. Delquith, her name was. Or Lorquist. Something like that. She was perky and cheerful and she wasn't going to last two years at St Mungo's.

"Sir?" She was very cautious. "Your Muggle is at it again."

He scowled at her. "He's not my Muggle. I don't have any Muggles. None. Of the Muggles. Are mine." He wondered how many times he'd have to repeat that.

"Well, he's _A_ Muggle, and he's your case, and that makes him your Muggle," she said cheerfully. "And he's in the stockroom again."

Snape sighed and cast a containment spell over two of the three cauldrons. The third was simmering nicely and needed another four hours; as long as nobody touched it, it would be fine. And if it wasn't, well, someone else could tell the patients why their Skele-Gro was late. Making medical potions was a condition of his continued freedom; making sure the production wasn't interrupted was not.

He stalked down the hall, robes flaring as he walked. The younger healers stepped out of his way and even most patients tried to move aside. He kept himself from smirking as a mediwitch flinched when his robes brushed her; it wouldn't do to let the rest of the staff know how much he enjoyed his Ministry of Magic-mandated job.

The stockroom was huge, a warehouse space full of shelves and rows of cabinets. A few house elves puttered around with their foldable extendable ladders, refilling boxes or pulling supplies off to take to mediwizards. But most of them, as usual, were clustered in the northeast corner, where they were trying (and failing) to prevent a man from getting into the supplies.

Philip Jamiriquoi Coulson, aka The American Visitor, aka The Loki Patient, aka Snape's Muggle (he was really trying to squash that one), was trying to find a way out. Having established that he could not find the front doors (a specialized Confundus hid them from patients who were prone to wandering off), he was looking for tools to go through the windows. Or maybe the walls. Every time, Coulson grabbed a different set of tools; he never tried the same method twice.

This time, he was gathering rolls of gauze and burn ointment. Ah. He'd probably seen the Floo Network and was planning on trying to use it somehow.

"It won't work. The Floo only activates for wizards and witches. Sometimes squibs, but never Muggles."

Coulson looked up at him sharply, then went back to placing jars and rolls of cloth in his knapsack. Snape had no idea where he'd gotten that; probably grabbed it from the lost and found box. Some brat had always left a knapsack or duffel bag or bookbag in the visitor centre.

One of the house elves came over to Snape, wringing his hands. "Master Snape, sir, we is trying to stop him, but he won't go back to his room. We is very sorry. We has strict rules about not interfering with the patients—"

Snape made a gesture and he stopped talking. He wished Coulson had the sense to realize how impressive that was—Snape always wanted his audience to recognize his talents—but he knew it was a lost cause. Coulson didn't even know what house elves were, much less how difficult it was to keep them from apologizing.

He didn't bother to address the elf; they'd figure things out on their own. He spoke to his patient. "You can't leave. You're not done recuperating."

"I'd prefer to do my recuperating in a hospital of my choosing, thanks," he said mildly.

Snape narrowed his eyes and watched Coulson's hands. The man's voice was always mildest before he attacked someone. Snape was assigned to him after he knocked three trainees unconscious with, of all things, a teapot. Coulson's tea was now served in small plastic cups. He didn't seem to mind.

"There is nowhere else," Snape said. "You're recovering from a serious magical attack, and St Mungo's has the best thaumaturgical trauma ward in the world."

Coulson looked down at his chest, currently covered by a pale green hospital gown. "I'm not glowing blue. I'm walking around. Obviously, I'm ready to recover elsewhere."

"You know _nothing_ about magical trauma," he snapped back.

Coulson considered that for a moment, and then asked, "Where is my doctor?"

Snape rolled his eyes. Every time, Coulson asked this. "You don't have a 'doctor.' I am a potions master and the mediwizard assigned to your case." If Snape wasn't actually a licensed mediwizard, Coulson certainly would never know that. "A magical spear took out most of your heart and damaged half your lungs. You can't recover from that kind of damage by lounging around on a beach in Tahiti. Your Ministry of Magic sent you here on the off chance you might survive, which you apparently have, despite all your efforts to undermine my hard work. Now, it's time for you to get back to your room before the Pepperup Potion wears off and you collapse."

"Now I know you're lying, because we don't have a 'Ministry of Magic'." That was more pointed. Good. Coulson rarely got violent when he appeared angry.

Snape waved his hand. "Department. Senate. Whatever you call it in America. Some branch of your government with magical politics sent you here, and I'm fairly sure they actually want you to be alive and breathing when you return. Why, I can't possibly say, but I don't pick the patients; I just make sure they survive."

"I've survived; thank you; I'm ready to leave now." He finished placing supplies in the knapsack and put it over one shoulder. Snape saw one of his hands tremble slightly, and smiled meanly as he moved aside.

Coulson pursed his lips and started walking. He got about six steps before his knees gave out, and managed to crawl an impressive halfway to the door before he collapsed. His arms were stretched out in front of him; Snape supposed he was trying to drag himself along by his fingernails.

" _Levicorpus_!" Snape waved his wand, and lifted Coulson into the air. When he reached waist height, he gestured again, and Coulson floated at Snape's side as Snape left the storage room and strolled back to the Thaumatic Trauma Recovery wing.

"Let… let me down," Coulson gasped.

"No, I don't think so. You _were_ down, and a fat lot of good that did you. Now you're going back to your room, where you're going to recuperate properly, and I'm going to tell the house elves to lock the storage room. Again." Snape was never sure if they forgot, or if he'd missed telling one of them, or they deliberately ignored his orders.

Coulson struggled feebly in the air. The potion was wearing off quickly, and Snape walked faster to get him back to his room before the pain started again. It was a balancing act. The Pepperup Potion strengthened his heart enough to start healing; Dreamless Sleep soothed the aches and stopped the nightmares; the two together gave him enough energy to move around. He tried to time the doses so they didn't overlap, but the man had threads of wild magic running through his system; he wasn't stable enough for the calculations to work consistently.

And now he'd overexerted himself and he was going to feel every missing gram of his heart until Snape got him another potion. (None of the other mediwizards would approach Coulson when he was in pain. He threw things. Snape had never met anyone else who could turn hospital slippers into deadly weapons, and were the circumstances different, he would enjoy finding out how he'd learned to do that.)

Coulson stilled himself, apparently realizing either that he was trapped, or that he was too weak to move; possibly he noticed that both were true. He started looking around, eyes flickering just a bit at each door; Snape realized he must be counting the number of rooms and the turns they were taking.

Snape waited until they were back in Coulson's room to speak again; by that time, Coulson was clenching his jaw and shivering; the pain must be more intense than usual. As had become standard, a bottle of Dreamless Sleep was waiting on the bedside table, along with a tray holding a paper bowl of soup and plastic spoon. "Counting won't do you any good," Snape said pleasantly. "You won't be able to remember the route you followed," he continued as he levitated Coulson back into the bed.

"I'll remember," Coulson said as he winced through the movement. "Pain is… pain is an excellent focus for memory."

Snape chuckled. "So it is. Fortunately, here at St Mungo's, we have a cure for that." And he raised his wand again, pointed it at Coulson's forehead, and said, " _Obliviate_!"

Coulson's eyes went blank and unfocused; then he groaned and tensed all over. "Hurrtsss…" he whispered.

"Here, drink this. It will make you feel better," Snape said as he handed him the potion, counting on the momentary confusion to override Coulson's paranoia. Coulson looked confused as he took the bottle, and then his hand spasmed around it as another wave of pain wracked his body. He gulped it down, probably thinking (mistakenly) that the potion couldn't possibly make him feel worse.

He relaxed instantly, and in less than a minute, he was asleep. Snape cast a preservation spell on the soup to keep it hot and the bowl intact, and went back to his cauldrons. Just another couple of months of this and he could throw the man back to the Americans where he belonged.


End file.
